Seoul

Big Frank has said good bye to Tokyo and has landed in Seoul, where he'll be staying for the next 5 days or so. It was a pretty quick flight over. Big Frank sat next to a guy named Al on the flight. Usually when Big Frank flies he's not one to get into any big conversations - not even many small ones. But Al was a talker. He's an army officer in the corps of engineers. Big Frank could pretty much give you his life story, but will spare you that. The highlights - as relayed to Big Frank were his getting into West Point where his first year was hell! He lost 50 pounds - his main hazer pretty much wouldn't let him eat at all. However, when another officer saw how much watermellon Al at during a watermellon eating contest the light went on and he made the big hazer apologize to Al. Then Al graduated lived the single life for a number of years but decided he wanted a kid - thought about a surrogate mother, but decided the kid needed a dad so when he met an army nurse - they got married. However, when he first met his mother-in-law coming down to eat breakfast one morning, and she greeted him with a french kiss!! - he knew there was going to be trouble. Maybe because he didn't respond (he speculates) she turned his wife against him. $100,000 in lawyer fees later - he's now remarried and life is good. This is the abbreviated story. The bus from the airport was pretty uneventful - two Japanese women chattering away behind Big Frank, but nobody sitting next to him. He checked into the hotel - got an upgrade to a swanky room (why doesn't anybody use that word anymore?). It's now very late and Big Frank has work tomorrow, so he's going to sleep in all his swankiness.